Blood Trade

couldn’t handle.

A man in a gas mask raced through the dining room opening, a shotgun in one hand. But he experienced a moment of indecision. Was I there to save his master? Or was I there to do him harm? In that single heartbeat of indecisiveness, I coldcocked him. He fell like a sack of potatoes, and I dodged the gas mask as it flew off but caught the human.

Deep inside me, Beast huffed with laughter and milked my brain with her claws. Fun, she murmured.

“Sorry, Clark,” I said, as I eased him down to the floor. “I promised Rick’s Soul not to kill humans. I didn’t promise not to hurt a few.” I picked up his shotgun and broke it open, tossing the rounds and laying the gun on the nearest white couch.

I raced for the stairs and paused in the entrance, looking back. Behind me, Bruiser secured Clark with heavy-duty zip strips, pushing the body out of the way. Behind him came Eli. Framed in the doorway, back at the street, a figure stood in the rain. It was Herman Hosenfeld, his eyes closed, his hands half-raised in prayer. He was shivering in his cheap suit, a cold wind blowing and icy rain pelting him. Beside him stepped a woman wearing gauzy greens, her clothes whipping around her, looking already drenched. Soul. She spread her fingers, her lips moving. She was speaking a warding of some kind. Hosenfeld paused, looked at her, and smiled before going back to his praying.

A dark form sped in through the door. Faster than any human. Rick, his eyes glowing greenish. I cursed into my mic and the Kid said, “Sorry,” into my earpiece. Rick was beside me in an instant, his cat musk strong in the air. There wasn’t time to argue, and arguing with a big-cat is a waste of time anyway.

Eli looked up from the equipment he was readying. “I called him. We needed manpower.”

I snarled and told Rick, “Put in your music spell.”

Rick snarled back but put the earpieces in. He didn’t have a helmet and wouldn’t be able to hear the com channel, but if I kept him close, it shouldn’t matter. I dropped the CNB—the communications nexus box—at the top of the stairs and aligned it, pointing it down. The tactical radio system being run by the Kid was designed to work in places where physical or electromechanical interference was high. When we went through the doors and lost direct radio signal, the Kid would switch to the UCU—underground com units. It wasn’t the way I had envisioned using the set, but it was a handy thing to own when fighting vamps.

“Ready?” I asked Eli and the Kid.

“On your mark,” Eli said.

“We are in the house’s intercom,” Alex said.

I nodded to Bruiser. He pushed a button on his mic mouthpiece and said, “Attention, all Mithrans.” The sound of his voice rang through the house, echoing through the intercom and sound system. “I am the Enforcer of the Master of the City of New Orleans, here for the Naturaleza, the breakers of law, the drainers of blood, the takers of lives. Leo Pellissier has the pledge of Hieronymus. Leo Pellissier has the right of might and of law and of the Vampira Carta. We have your lair. Give us your hands, and no one will die. Fight us, and all will suffer. I have spoken.” He switched off the mic and nodded to me.

I handed the M32 to Rick and said, “Rubber bullets.” It took a moment for understanding to enter his eyes, but he nodded once, a downward jut of his chin, his eyes going darker and more human. He took the weapon and checked it for firing. Braced it against his shoulder. I pushed open the door to the stairs leading down to the lairs. Rick fired three shots, hitting three humans, one with each shot. Cat reflexes, one; blood-servant reflexes, zero.

The gas-masked blood-servants fell. Semiautomatic weapon fire chattered off the stairway walls, a ricochet going wild. Rick caught a servant who fell forward and over the railing, hauling the man up by an arm. We raced down the stairs, Rick at my side, the M32 at the ready, followed by Bruiser and Eli, working together on our weapon. I just hoped that Big H hadn’t equipped all his blood-servants with masks.

The hallway branched at the bottom of the stairs. “Which way?” I asked into my mic.

“Left,” Bodat said. Behind us came the sound of running feet, the squeak of rubber, and the sliding of heavy synthetic fibers. I looked back and nodded to Eli.

There were three rooms. Bruiser held a PIR device to the door and said, “No vamps. Passive infrared shows humans. Two, both prone.”

I opened the door to show the expected humans, asleep. “I love technology,” I said.

Using the PIR device, we cleared each room. All were full of sleeping humans, zonked in the middle of daytime activities by the sleepy-time gas. “Hallway is clear,” I said.

“Go to your right now,” Bodat said. “After that we are blind. There are no more security cameras, and we have no idea of the layout.”

More humans slept in the rooms on the right. “Floor is clear,” I said. “Heading down one flight.” I dropped a second CNB and angled it down. It was the last one we had. Fortunately, the stairway ended in a foyer with three more closed doors.

Bruiser held the PIR up to each door and motioned at each one. There were two vamps in one room, four in another, and more than six in the last one. That made my stomach clench. If this didn’t work, we were in trouble. We had no backup.

Scenting my reaction to that thought, Rick snarled. He pulled two handguns, semiautomatics. “Silver,” he growled, his voice low, speaking of the ammo he carried. “Purest ever refined.”

I pointed to the room with two vamps in it and Bruiser nodded. I snapped two vials of holy water off my weapon harness, unscrewed the tops, and nodded to him. He stood to the side, out of my way, and met my eyes in warning. “We have no firsthand confirmation that holy water works on vamps,” he whispered, his words no more than breaths, “and our best experts say it’s unreliable.” He was talking about the Kid and Reach, who hadn’t been able to offer proof positive that holy water worked against vamps. The historical record was iffy at best, perhaps being a matter of the quality of the water itself, as if maybe it went bad after a time, like sour tea or old eggs. But this stuff was fresh, the preacher was outside praying over it, and I was willing to try it.

I said loudly, “So let’s try out our new secret weapon.” Sometimes fear is better than a blade, and the idea of a secret weapon might give us the advantage. Especially if it worked, and the vamps in the other rooms had no idea what was happening until it had already happened to these two.

He nodded once and pointed to the direction of the cool bodies in the room. I would have a single instant to decide if the vamps were surrendering, shooting, or fighting. And then react accordingly. That put me on defense. In a fight, the one on offense always has the advantage.

Beast leaped into the forefront of my mind. Hunt! She thought at me. Her power flooded into me, and the world went sharp and stark. Energy so intense it heated my skin and each breath felt as if it contained the power of the universe, a black star of might at my core. I knew my eyes were glowing gold.

I nodded at Bruiser. He tried the knob, expecting the door to be locked. It opened.

I had a single glimpse. Two vamps, both male, vamped out, were in midair. Leaping at me. I tossed the opened vials of baptismal water, and Bruiser slammed the door. On the other side, heavy thumps sounded—vamps hitting the door. And then the horrible screams that vamps make when they are dying. Or think they are. Beast hacked with delight. By the screams, they were heading away, probably to the nearest showers.

Bruiser caught my gaze, taking in the gold glow. He looked at Rick and the greenish-glow of the cop’s eyes. Whatever was in the men’s eyes, I ignored.

Preacher Hosenfeld would be pleased that the baptismal water from his church worked against vamps as well as some old myths suggested that water blessed by a priest would.

Bruiser held up the PIR and smiled grimly. Loudly enough to be heard clearly through the other two doors, he said, “That heated them up a bit.”

Rick chuckled, the chuffs of a cat. Beast turned to him and hacked with delight.

Bruiser looked at neither of us and moved to the next room, holding up four fingers to remind us of the numbers of vamps inside. I nodded and stepped back. Four was too many for me to handle alone. Eli dragged the heavy nozzle behind him. I had no idea where he’d gotten the fire hose, but this particular one would allow us to pump up to 210 gallons per minute through a special nozzle he’d gotten from a plant nursery—one that allowed a wide spray rather than the usual concentrated, unidirectional spray used for fighting fires. The tank it was attached